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Monthly Archives: December 2013

The Philadelphia Inquirer Monday, December 23, 2013 We live within the sound of trains. We always have, through five different houses and five different states, West Coast, Midwest, and East Coast. And the trains sound the same whether we are listening in Maine or the Main Line, Illinois or California, for their sound seems to … Continue reading →

Outward Bound in Scotland was an epic moment. A photo of Churchill Watch sits on my bookcase. I am the tall, skinny, bushy-haired kid in the back row. Hands in pockets, I peer at the camera, scowling, uncertain. Brian Todd sits in the front row beside our instructor, Mr. Cliff. His hands are on his … Continue reading →

Photo: Piping for the Class of 2010, Adams School, Castine, Maine. THIS is the story of why I play the bagpipes, and it begins more than a hundred years ago. On July 2, 1867, at 23 Hunter St. in Glasgow, Scotland, Alexander Neilson, a journeyman joiner, and Jeanie Callum, listed simply as “spinster” in the … Continue reading →

I was on a plane from Philadelphia to Glasgow, the city of my ancestors. In two days, my daughter, Ariel Rose Nelson, would graduate from Glasgow School of Art. “We”—the Nelson family—left the city four generations ago, and some of us have been looking back ever since. And looking ahead. Ours is a common enough … Continue reading →

December 3, 2007 He appeared with the first flakes of snow, swooping in low out of the woods and into the field. He took up sentinel duty on an 8-foot tall fence post by the garden. From a distance he looked like a huge ball of yarn, or a post with a shawl on top. … Continue reading →